


War without Peace

by deadwritersociety



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: A heavily edited version of a fic I once published on my old account, Accidental Relationship, Badass Sarah Jacobs (Newsies), F/F, Gun Violence, M/M, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 03:42:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20753762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadwritersociety/pseuds/deadwritersociety
Summary: Davey, an 18 year old asthmatic, ran from his home in Hartford, Connecticut to a bunker just outside of New York City. The reason; the world is ending. Zombies are everywhere and he races to survival. Finding a bunker full of guys from New York, he knows his mission: find his brother and sister and make their way to safety down south.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic I wrote many moons ago on an old ao3 account. It is heavily edited and some aspects have been changed simply because Rowan from 2017 did not know SHIT about that stuff and neither does present age Rowan. Please enjoy, as this was my life's work in the summer of 2017. Most of this is cringe worthy, as I decided to leave the cringe bits.

Running, running, running. A sharp right turn. His arm hits a tree as he trips over his feet running.

Where was the bunker?

They were moving fast now. 

His backpack was heavy and made it harder to run. His breathing was fast and his heart was pounding in his head. He needed his inhaler, but if he stopped now he would surely miss the cut off for the bunkers. 

The bunker had to be at least a mile away and they would catch up to him in at least five minutes.

David pulled himself up off the ground and ran with everything in him. His lungs were burning and he was afraid his bag would slip off at any moment. It held his jacket, an extra binder, a bottle of body wash, shampoo, a box of granola bars; all of the essentials. Everything he would need if he didn't make it to a bunker. It was a generic bag that everyone received. 

But he would make it to the bunker. He was not letting another shitty thing happen to him in this lifetime. 

Scientists had warned everyone that the in trial cancer cure was eating at the brains; turning patients into superhumans and now they wanted to kill. No one would listen, and now David was running to one of the few bunkers that were built in the past year. 

He could see the bunker, it wasn’t much farther now. There were boys his age about to lock the doors. He let out a wheeze, pushing himself farther.

He slipped through the door just as it was closing and fell to his knees, gasping for air. 

The boys crowded around him, speaking in mumbles. They had the whole New York aura and accent. Except he wasn’t from New York. He was from Connecticut. 

“Back off of him, would ya?” The voice, David would learn, belonged to the unofficial leader of the boys; Jack Kelly. 

David slung his bag off, his face hot from all the running. 

“Now, you just busted right in here, what do you think you were doing?”

“Running from zombies. Obviously.” David’s sarcasm was one of his better traits. 

“So, you’re a wise ass?” This time it was someone different speaking; someone he would soon learn to be called Race. 

“No,” David started, knowing he needed to find his inhaler. “I need my inhaler or I am literally going to die of an asthma attack.”

“Hand me your bag,” Jack told him. 

Jack shuffled around in the bag after David reluctantly handed it over. He threw some of the things on the floor before finally tossing an inhaler to David. 

David breathed in a puff of it while Jack spoke to him. “Where are you from?”

David closed his eyes, breathing in and out slowly. “Connecticut. Hartford, to be exact.”

“Hartford.. Right. Well, we’re just outside of New York City. A bit of a stretch from Hartfod, yea?”

“New York… no, that doesn’t make sense. No, I was supposed to meet my sister after this cleared up. She could be anywhere now. She’s with my little brother. They could be dead. I have to go.”

“You aren’t going anywhere,” Jack told him sternly. “First of all, we’re surrounded by zombies. Second of all, you are in no shape to be doing any adventuring for quite some time. Third, honestly, it’s a long shot. Almost everywhere is deserted.”

David slowly nodded. He knew that he was right. He pushed his inhaler back into his bag and hung his head low.

“Do you mind telling me your name?” Jack asked him. 

“I'm David Jacobs. You are?”

Jacobs. Jack had heard the name before. He'd talked to someone, they were looking for a David Jacobs. He couldn't place the person, though. 

“Well I'm Jack Kelly, and if you want, I can introduce you to the other guys and we can all get arranged to be living pretty normally down here.

David stood now and he picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder. He'd have to clean his cuts and bruises later, but for now he'd be okay with meeting everyone. 

They made their way to the living room area where the others were talking. 

“Okay guys, we've got a new friend here with us. His name is David, and he's from Hartford.”

David gave a small wave with an awkward smile. 

He pointed to the Italian boy who had called him a wise ass earlier. “This here is Race. He’s been studying a little physics at NYU.”

“Mostly for fun,” Race piped in. 

“You called me a wise ass,” David stated. 

“Yeah, well, you were being one.” 

“Anyways,” Jack started again, “this here is Crutchie. He’s from upstate. He was in the city when it all started.

Crutchie shyly waved, almost too shy to do anything at all. 

  
  


“Next to Crutchie is Specs; without his glasses he's about as blind as a bat but he knows how to defend himself, so we keep him around.”

“And then there's Race’s brother, Romeo. He was a senior in high school when this all started.” 

Romeo gave a nod, as he wasn't very talkative. 

“Then there's Albert and Elmer over here; they're twins. Both of them are high school sophomores.” 

They were young. This whole ordeal shouldn’t have been happening to them. They didn’t deserve their lives being torn apart. They should be going to parties and having the time of their life. 

“And then there's me, Jack Kelly. Artist, barista, man of mystery.”

David nodded, taking a seat on the floor. He was tired, dehydrated, and definitely malnourished. He didn't know how long he had been running for, but he must have been running for a couple of days. 

“I need to leave,” he stated. “I need to find my siblings. I need to find them now.”   
  


Race rolled his eyes. “Yeah and I need to find my boyfriend. We all have people out there. You aren’t the only one.”

David closed his eyes. All of these guys were going through the same thing. They were all suffering just the same. 

“After we all go over some basic skills and figure out how to use weapons we can all go out as a group and search for our friends and family.”

David let out a shaky breath. The only family he had left were Sarah and Les. His parents became one of them. They tried to keep them sane for the longest time; but then they both tried to go after Les. Him and Sarah both had to kill their parents. It was traumatizing. 

He closed his eyes, a tear slipping down his face. 

“Let's get you something to eat, something to drink. You’ll feel better before you know it.”

David nodded slowly pulling himself off the floor. Crutchie pulled out some crackers for David, which he ate slowly and quietly. 

Now they were sitting in the living room again, except Race. He was rummaging, looking through the cabinets for something better than saltines to eat.

“So what were you before this whole shitstorm?” The question came from Romeo. 

Race hit his brother’s arm. “He's been through a lot, just leave him alone.”

“No,” David said with a small laugh. “My life was pretty nice before this whole thing. I was about to start college on a track scholarship. I just graduated a few months ago. I was going to be an English major.

Romeo nodded laughing at him. “I guess that explains the running, then?”

David shrugged. “I can run fast, I haven’t slept for a couple days, I’m starving, I’m sweaty, and I truly feel like I’m dying.”

“Jesus Christ,” Specs said, speaking up. “You need to get some sleep. Sleep deprivation can be as dangerous as them zombies,” he told him with a laugh. 

“He's right,” Albert said, speaking up. “Man we all need sleep. We'd be dead if we had slept at all out there.” 

“We'd be dead if we stayed at home with mom,” Elmer added. 

The message flashed through David’s mind. ‘Stay inside. It’s safer inside. Wait for the official warning to leave for bunkers.’

“We’d all be dead if we listened to the shitty message they broadcasted,” David told them. 

There were slow nods all around the room. 

Jack came into the living room a few minutes later. “There’s a room with beds down the hall. A few of us are gonna have to share some beds, they're double beds so it won't be too awkward. Albert and Elmer, you two can share a bed. Same goes for Race and Romeo. Crutchie and Specs, can you two can share a bed?” 

They both nodded.

“That leaves me and Davey here. We can both have our own beds if that's alright with the rest of you.”

No one protested against it. 

“David needs sleep, like, now.” This was Specs.

“We  _ all _ need sleep,” Race corrected. 

At this point, all the guys were getting ready for bed. Ready to sleep off a weeks worth of pain and exhaustion. David was in a baggy t-shirt and boxers. He was uncomfortable, but it was the apocalypse; he couldn't complain.

He quickly pulled the blankets over himself, not wasting a minute of the rest ahead of him.

They all mumbled goodnight to each other and were all asleep within the next few minutes. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David and Jack talk about David's 'before the shit storm' time. Jack proclaims that they will find everyone, and the guys begin training to leave the bunker once again.

Nightmares were unusual for David, but killing his own parents did have some sort of effect on him. He kept reliving that moment. The moment in his life where he killed his parents. It wasn’t his choice. It wasn’t what he wanted to do, but he knew he had to. He had to kill them or else the three siblings would be dead. 

David thrashed around in the bed, quietly whimpering as his mind continued to replay the images. Bashing a brick into his father’s head, suffocating his mother. No one would recover from that, much less someone so close to being a child. A new adult in this decaying world. 

A few of the boys in the room woke from the noise, circling around his bed. 

“Are we going to do anything?” Specs asked first, trying his hardest to whisper. 

“There isn’t much we can do,” Crutchie told them morosely.

“We could wake him up,” Albert chimed in from across the room, sleep still entangled in his voice.

“No you can't stupid, it dangerous.” Whose voice was that? David’s mind could not identify it, as his mind was stuck between sleep and awake. His thrashing soon calmed, but everyone that was awake could tell that the fear was planted deep in his mind, unable to escape. These nights would soon become far too regular for him. 

“Shut up, everyone.” Jack pushed the ones that crowded around David’s bed out of the way. “Just shut up and go back to bed.” He moved to the head of the bed, brushing David’s sweat soaked hair away from his forehead, hoping it would calm him down, and of course, it worked.

David awoke to the touch of Jack and sat up in bed, taking in the look of the room for a moment. For a bunker, this place was much nicer than expected.

“What was your nightmare about?” Jack knew it would be sensitive. Hell, every dream and every waking moment on this earth from this moment forward would be sensitive and impossible. 

“Well,” David began, “Before I left home, before the mass destruction of planet earth had begun. Before it all, I had to kill my parents. They were infected, and getting worse every single day. I did what I had to do and now I regret it. The pain won’t leave me, it’s always there, day in and day out.”

“I can’t say that I ever had to do the same thing, but I get it. I can’t even imagine how hard it must have been for you. I think a lot of people were in that position, though.”

Of course there were. Of course there were so many people across the earth and universe that had to make that same sacrifice. They had to kill, to suffer, they had to make that choice no matter how hard it was. 

Albert and Elmer bolted to the forests the day it began, loading their school bags with bottles of water and food. They layered their clothes, dehydrating themselves from the heat of it all, but they needed the clothes if they were going to avoid infection and stay somewhat clean. 

Race left his apartment to find Romeo. It took him hours. Searching in the big commotion, trying to find one person amongst millions was agony. They found each other and left in Race’s car immediately. They left far longer before anyone had even thought to. 

Crutchie and Specs had lived together before. Specs, coming from a military family, learned to fight from his father at a young age. Crutchie was the one that decided they would leave the day that they did. They left days before the first wave of people rushing out of the city hit.

Jack had an ex girlfriend and that was about it. He saw her just before she left, with two kids; siblings to be exact. They were going south, hoping to find something other than cramped bunkers. Katherine Plumber. 

Jack had a sudden moment of realization. “Your sister, you said her name was Sarah?” 

“Yes. Her name is Sarah. Why? Do you know where she is?”

“I've seen her,” Jack told him. “She was with Katherine, one of my friends over in Jersey. It was her and a younger boy.”

No one was sleeping, they were all eavesdropping on the conversation. They all heard Jack tell David that he had met his sister. 

David couldn't comprehend this much information in such little time. 

“You're telling me.. you're saying.. you've seen my sister?”

Jack nodded, getting up off the bed. “If you get up and get dressed, we’ll wake everyone up. We’ll train, we’ll learn to fight, we’ll learn everything we can. Then we’ll leave and find them. We’ll find everyone that we’re looking for. Every single person, or so help me God, I’ll die just the same as every other person that died finding their own.”

Everyone overhead what Jack was saying, but they couldn’t possibly believe it. A real chance at making it out there. A fighting chance, one in which they could find their loved ones. 

Specs would teach people how to fight in pairs of two. Guns, hand-to-hand, anything and everything they would need in the even that they would be approached by the zombies in the wasteland before them. 

Albert, Elmer, and Romeo had no trouble. They were strong and valiant, not willing to stand down. 

Race, David, and Jack had a bit more trouble, they were the weaker ones of the group, not the kind to get in fights or even want to fight. Soon, though, they pushed through the thick of it and came out on top, learning enough to make sure they wouldn’t die the moment they left. 

This all felt wrong to David, though. One day, he’s running track in high school, one of the best. He was going to college. Yet, now, he was learning to fight. He was learning to kill in quickest possible way. 

Killing felt wrong, and yet, he had already killed twice.


End file.
